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The natural Eden that was Southern California at the beginning of the twentieth century was endangered only decades later as great swathes of land were paved over and the air became choked with smog. A teenaged Andy Lipkis recognized the environmental threat to area forests and founded TreePeople in 1973. By its thirtieth anniversary in 2003, TreePeople had planted nearly two million trees in and around Los Angeles. In addition to inspiring, training, and supporting hundreds of thousands of individuals as they plant and nurture trees, the organization has become an international leader in promoting environmental stewardship and a recognized authority on environmental education for children and teens.
The Norris Foundation chose to support TreePeople for the first time in 2003. The funds go to the Campus Forestry program, which is an effort to transform Los Angeles schools’ vast expanses of heat-absorbing asphalt and concrete into environments both more natural and conducive to learning. In conjunction with TreePeople’s hands-on, award-winning curriculum, Schoolyard Explorers, the program integrates the fundamentals of a campus tree-planting with core academic subjects to form a complete learning experience. The program empowers students to take personal responsibility for improving their campus and allows them to serve their community with meaningful work while learning math, science, language arts, and social studies. The Campus Forestry program has been active in local schools for almost a decade, during which time 100 schools have participated and more than 6,000 trees have been added to local campuses.
Over the years, the scope of the organization’s work has broadened to include a drive to promote sustainability and transform the way Los Angeles manages its natural resources. The aim for the future will be to help the natural ecosystem in Los Angeles better meet the area’s water, energy and economic development needs while keeping its air, beaches and rivers clean and healthy. To elicit public participation, the organization is creating a new facility, TreePeople Center for Community Forestry, which will replace its cluster of environmentally friendly tents in Coldwater Canyon Park. The Center for Community Forestry will be a model of sustainability and a place of education and action for the children, youth and families of Los Angeles.
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